Diners pray before eating during the 2018 Christmas Day dinner at Grace United Methodist Church. This year’s free event will be held Dec. 25, with delivery, carry-out and dine in options.
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After all of the presents are opened on Christmas morning, it’s time to celebrate the true meaning of the season.
The Bixler family of Franklin gets dressed in red-and-green outfits, Christmas sweaters and other festive gear. Then, each Christmas for more than 10 years, they head to Grace United Methodist Church.
A central part of the holiday for the family has become serving meals to families, seniors who have no one else to eat with and those in need.
“It’s nice to know that we’re helping to provide a hot meal and some happiness to someone who might not have it, or they can’t get out, so someone can take that meal to them,” said Cheryl Bixler. “We’re brightening someone’s day.”
The Bixlers, along with many other volunteers, will again help feed the community during the annual Christmas dinner at Grace United Methodist Church. The free meal is open to anyone, and has grown to become one of Johnson County’s most beloved traditions.
For those volunteers who help serve the meal, it’s a way to truly grasp the spirit of the holidays.
“It’s a way for our family to give back to the community and to serve and think about somebody other than ourselves on Christmas. We wanted to install that in our kids, and they still look forward to it,” said Gina Broadmore, whose family has been a longtime volunteer at the event.
Grace United Methodist Church has been hosting the dinner since starting the outreach effort in the wake of the 2008 recession. The discussion started with wanting to offer a free meal — similar to the annual Johnson County Thanksgiving Banquet — which the entire community could enjoy.
Nina Miller started helping with the event that first year. She felt it was a solution to a question that had been bothering her — how to feed people who needed it most.
“Any time I’d be out, and see homeless people or people begging for money, my first thought came to, ‘I wonder how hungry they are?’ So I wanted to be able to help feed people,” she said.
Volunteering also gave Miller and her husband a new way to spend Christmas Day.
“Our family never gets together on Christmas Day. So the day was usually spent sitting at home, watching TV,” she said. “I thought we could use our time better elsewhere. That’s what keeps me going every year.”
When the first dinner was hosted in 2008, church volunteers served 60 people. Recent Christmases have seen more than 800 people fed, including last year, when the event was drive-through and delivery only, said Andy Kinsey, pastor at Grace United Methodist Church.
The church takes great joy in being able to present the dinner to the community.
“We’ve been able to do it through the generosity of the people, and it’s been something that for many of our families, it’s a staple part of their Christmas Day,” Kinsey said. “They like to come help, whether that’s to prepare the meal, serve the meal, delivering the meals, helping with carryout. All of that factors in.”
Miller, who has spearheaded the cooking and led the kitchen efforts since 2018, is planning to feed 1,000 people this time around.
“I love working in the kitchen. That’s my job at church — I’m the kitchen coordinator,” she said. “I love feeding people who are hungry.”
The Broadmores started taking part in the Christmas Day dinner almost from the start. They liked the idea of reaching out to people who didn’t have the means for a large holiday meal, or had nowhere else to go on Christmas.
They have watched as the event has grown and grown, and have been happy to be part of helping it get larger.
“It’s just kind of a tradition now that our family does together,” Gina Broadmore said. “We get up in the morning, do a little Christmas at our house, then spend part of the morning and afternoon serving.”
In recent years, the Broadmores have been assigned delivery meal packing. Afterwards, the family gathers with the Bixlers to celebrate together.
“We’ve been friends for a long time, and our kids have grown up together,” Gina Broadmore said.
The Bixlers started taking part in the community meal a few years after it was founded. They had some friends who talked about how much fun it was.
At the same time, the family was looking for a way to reconnect with the generous spirit of the holiday.
“We thought about what we could do to give back to the community,” Cheryl Bixler said. “It gives us time to be here together as a family.”
Their main responsibility has been preparing the deliveries to be sent out. Over the span of a couple hours, they scoop food into to-go packages and make sure the deliveries are all ready to go.
When they started, the Bixlers’ children were young. Though they’re in their 20s now, they still make it a priority to work it into Christmas Day.
“It’s very important to them to be able to serve,” Cheryl Bixler said.
Serving of the meals will be broken up into three different ways on Dec. 25. Delivery meals — which need to be requested by Tuesday — is set from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Carry-out meals can be picked up from 2 to 4 p.m., and a dine-in portion of the meal, with tables spaced to keep people safe, is scheduled from 4 to 6 p.m.
”We’ll do what we can to make it a comfortable setting. If people don’t have any other place to go on Christmas Day, they can come to receive a meal or have a meal dining in, and have a safe place to do it,” Kinsey said. “The whole purpose is to provide a hot meal to folks who may be struggling or having a difficult time. There’s no strings attached.”
